Ghost Ship warehouse owner: a polite, hands-off landlord

A Buddhist temple is located in an Oakland building owned by Chor Ng, who is also landlord of the Ghost Ship fire site.

Photo: Pete Kiehart, Special to The Chronicle

To her tenants scattered in tiny storefronts throughout Oakland, Chor Ng is the quiet, unobtrusive landlord who shows up once a month in her white Mercedes-Benz to politely collect her rent checks.

By all accounts, the 62-year-old Ng doesn’t interfere in those little businesses, which include a bakery, a florist shop, a Buddhist temple, and a massage parlor offering foot and body rubs for $35 an hour.

That hands-off attitude apparently extended to another building in her $5 million Oakland property portfolio — the Ghost Ship live-work warehouse on 31st Avenue near International Boulevard, which city officials say had no permits for residential or entertainment uses before it burned Dec. 2, killing 36 people attending an electronic music show.

Lorena Dominguez owns the En Moda clothing shop in another warehouse owned by Ng right next door to the Ghost Ship. Although her business was damaged by water during the firefight and she’s probably going to be closed through Christmas, she said she holds no ill will toward Ng or her adult daughter, who handles some of the properties’ affairs.

“We’ve been here 25 years, and if they were bad landlords, we would have known,” Dominguez said. “We never see Chor Ng, really, unless she’s collecting rent. She doesn’t bother us or tell us how to run our business.”

After the fire, she said, “the Ng family emailed us to say they’ll take care of us, will help us reopen as soon as we can. They’ll help us get engineers in to work on the damage.

“For the most part, they — the family — do OK by us.”

Friends of Derick Ion Almena, who with his wife, Micah Allison, ran the Ghost Ship, say otherwise. In online forums, they’ve said Almena reached out to Chor Ng before the fire to complain about bad wiring and other safety issues, to no avail.

Ghost Ship warehouse owner: a polite, hands-off landlord

1of19The ceiling of a Pu Guang buddhist temple, located in a building on 13th and Harrison streets owned by Chor Ng, is seen on December 9, 2016 in Oakland, California. A fire at an artist's warehouse known as the "Ghost Ship," also owned by Chor Ng, began late on the evening of December 2nd and killed 36.Photo: Pete Kiehart, Special to The Chronicle

2of19An attendant directs a customer in an Oakland parking lot owned by Chor Ng, who is also landlord of the site of the deadly Ghost Ship fire.Photo: Pete Kiehart, Special to The Chronicle

3of19Graffiti marks the sidewalk behind a building at 13th and Harrison streets in Oakland owned by Chor Ng.Photo: Pete Kiehart, Special to The Chronicle

4of19A Buddha figure adorns a temple located in a building at13th and Harrison streets in Oakland owned by Chor Ng.Photo: Pete Kiehart, Special to The Chronicle

5of19Sandy Vuong, owner of Delicieuse Princesse Bakery, checks a cake order. The bakery is in a building at 13th and Harrison streets in Oakland owned by Chor Ng.Photo: Pete Kiehart, Special to The Chronicle

6of19Pedestrians are reflected in shop windows in a building at 13th and Harrison streets in Oakland owned by Chor Ng.Photo: Pete Kiehart, Special to The Chronicle

7of19Employees Le Ly, (left to right) Miao Xuechen, and Jamie Huang eat lunch at Delicieuse Princesse Bakery, located in a building on 13th and Harrison streets and owned by Chor Ng, on December 9, 2016 in Oakland, California. A fire at an artist's warehouse known as the "Ghost Ship," also owned by Chor Ng, began late on the evening of December 2nd and killed 36.Photo: Pete Kiehart, Special to The Chronicle

8of19Sandy Vuong, owner of Delicieuse Princesse Bakery which is located in a building on 13th and Harrison streets and owned by Chor Ng, speaks with one of her employees, Miao Xuechen, on December 9, 2016 in Oakland, California. A fire at an artist's warehouse known as the "Ghost Ship," also owned by Chor Ng, began late on the evening of December 2nd and killed 36.Photo: Pete Kiehart, Special to The Chronicle

9of19Sandy Vuong, owner of Delicieuse Princesse Bakery which is located in a building on 13th and Harrison streets and owned by Chor Ng, decorates a cake on December 9, 2016 in Oakland, California. A fire at an artist's warehouse known as the "Ghost Ship," also owned by Chor Ng, began late on the evening of December 2nd and killed 36.Photo: Pete Kiehart, Special to The Chronicle

10of19A sign in Delicieuse Princesse Bakery, located in a building on 13th and Harrison streets and owned by Chor Ng, advertises day-old bread on December 9, 2016 in Oakland, California. A fire at an artist's warehouse known as the "Ghost Ship," also owned by Chor Ng, began late on the evening of December 2nd and killed 36.Photo: Pete Kiehart, Special to The Chronicle

11of19Lesar Garcia, Derick Ion and Darren play music at the Day of the Dead celebration at Garfield Park in San Francisco Calif., on November 2, 2011.Photo: Audrey Whitmeyer-Weathers

12of19A post from May on Micah Allison's Facebook page, stating that the rent of her art space, presumably the Ghost Ship warehouse was 4,500 a month.Photo: Screen Shoot, Facebook

13of19This March 12, 2015 booking photo provided by the Glendale, Calif., Police Department shows Derick Ion Almena. Almena is an operator of the Ghost Ship warehouse in Oakland, in which dozens of people died in a fire that started Dec. 2, 2016. Spokeswoman Tawnee Lightfoot says Almena was stopped for driving with expired registration and, after a consensual search, two license plates from Oakland-area stolen cars were found. The charges apparently were not pursued. (Glendale Police Department via AP)Photo: Associated Press

14of19A photo of Micah Allison, left, and Derick Ion Almena that was posted on her Facebook page in May.Photo: Screen Shoot, Facebook

15of19David Sisak places a rose at an E. 12th Street memorial in memory of his friends Johnny Igaz, Amanda Kershaw and Chelsea Dolan in the aftermath of the deadly Ghost Ship warehouse fire in Oakland, Calif., on Tuesday, December 6, 2016. Sisak had a ticket to the December 2nd show at the warehouse but decided to not attend.Photo: Scott Strazzante, The Chronicle

16of19Birds fly by a building on 13th and Harrison streets owned by Chor Ng is seen on December 9, 2016 in Oakland, California. A fire at an artist's warehouse known as the "Ghost Ship," also owned by Chor Ng, began late on the evening of December 2nd and killed 36.Photo: Pete Kiehart, Special to The Chronicle

17of19As recovery efforts come to an end at the Ghost Ship warehouse, a memorial for fire victims grows on E, 12th Street in Oakland, Calif., on Tuesday, December 6, 2016.Photo: Scott Strazzante, The Chronicle

18of19Genevieve Krause of Oakland pauses at memorial before placing a flower in the aftermath of the deadly Ghost Ship warehouse fire in Oakland, Calif., on Tuesday, December 6, 2016.Photo: Scott Strazzante, The Chronicle

19of19At an E. 12th Street memorial, Juana Bautista and Brian Matias are reflected in a photograph of a victim in the aftermath of the deadly Ghost Ship warehouse fire in Oakland, Calif., on Tuesday, December 6, 2016.Photo: Scott Strazzante, The Chronicle

Ng and her 36-year-old daughter, Eva, who dealt with Oakland building inspectors looking into blight complaints outside the warehouse, have largely avoided the media since the disaster. Efforts to locate Chor Ng have been unsuccessful, and Eva Ng has not responded to requests for comment since telling reporters the day after the fire that her mother was unaware of anyone living in the Ghost Ship.

Almena’s friends say that has put him in the position of taking all the public’s blame for the fire.

“Right now, everybody wants to know why the owners Chor Ng and Eva Ng have not done one interview,” said Isa Shisha, 45, a friend of Almena’s. “They have not said one thing but a blanket statement days ago, yet every single day there is a new article about Derick. Most people don’t even know he isn’t the owner, and they need to know that. He did tell the owners about these problems and was told to pay out of pocket for them to be fixed.

“Nobody here has that kind of money, or they wouldn’t subject themselves to living in subpar conditions.”

Zachary “Zeke” Schultz, a former Ghost Ship resident and a tenant of an Ng-owned gallery building adjacent to the Ghost Ship, said he had texted and spoken extensively with the landlord about people illegally living in the weather-beaten warehouse and troubles they were causing. The family agreed it was a problem and said they planned to terminate the lease, which was set to expire in November 2018, he said.

City records also indicate that building-code and residential trouble at the Ghost Ship was not new to the Ng family, which has owned the boxy two-story structure since 1988.

City zoning and fire officials received dozens of complaints over the years about illegal residential uses, all-night dance parties and general blight at the warehouse. In 2007 — before the Ghost Ship was there — Alameda County placed a $1,684 lien on the property, citing “substandard, hazardous or injurious conditions.” The lien was released in 2009 after the issues were abated.

In 2014, shortly after Almena took over the lease and shaped the place into a collective he called Satya Yuga, complaints filed with the city’s building code department prompted officials to ask the Ng family to clean up the property. One thing they asked was that a wood structure on top of a fence be torn down.

Eva Ng responded in an email dated Sept. 21, 2014, that the lot next to the warehouse had become a “dumping ground” but that she was working on the cleanup.

“The wood on top of the fence has been taken down,” she wrote. She explained that the dumping had actually declined since the wood was put up and that the artists working in the warehouse had thought the structure was “artsy and beautiful, and (they) are sad that they have to take it down.”

Several miles north of the warehouses is a cluster of shops around 13th and Harrison streets in Ng-owned buildings. They’re the type of businesses found in nearby Chinatown — the massage parlor, the bakery, knickknack stores.

A lone worshiper chanted quiet prayers the other day as Master Alan, the monk in charge, wrapped a blanket around his shoulders and shivered in the chilly Fa Yuan Buddhist Center of America in one of the Ng-owned sites.

“We never see the owner, but she has let us keep everything the same,” he said. “No trouble.”

He said he had not heard of the Ghost Ship fire, and his eyes widened when he learned that 36 people had died.